Nahi, Nahi…

Today it came to light something that I, and I am certain many others, suspected: India is one big Bollywood movie set. Having watched a few movies from the Indian Industry, it pisses me off how exaggerated the hero finally saves the day and gets the girl. Don’t get me wrong, I am a chick flick kind of girl myself and after all, who doesn’t love a happy ending, but why do the men all have to sound and act like a super queer Sylvester Stallone who can take a lot of deadly punches and a rain of bullets all at the same time and still survive and most likely save the girl and her entire family… at once. Makes a person want to scream for sanity!

Now the problem is not the actors or the people they play or even the movies. The problem is the average Indian, when he lives his life in one of those movies. Something in me tells me not to generalize, but is it really a generalization when trained military professionals handle their job like each of them is a Bollywood hero?

An example: On the 18^th of November the Indian navy patrolling the waters off the coast of Somalia sank what they called a “pirate mother ship”, after the pirates on board opened fire on them. The Indians firing on that ship caused it to explode and according to them, the pirates could escape in speed boats. A week later the “mother ship” turned out to be a Thai fishing boat. A memo was sent around to ships patrolling that area that the Thai vessel had been seized by pirates. Yet, when the Indian “heroes” arrived at the scene, they saw a “mother ship” that needed to be blown up. A Cambodian crewman was fished out of water six days later by a passing ship. Fourteen others are still missing.

It’s not just the military, the police live in Bollywood as well. Shortly after the navy stars blew up the “pirate mother ship” and most likely killed 14 innocent fishermen on board, hotels in Mumbai were seized by what the Indians blamed on “Pakistani terrorists”. Regardless of the question “Who did it!?”, which is on everyone’s mind, one has to look at what the Indian forces did to protect the innocents. Today, the BBC told the story of a gynaecologist who was trapped in one of the hotels and barricaded himself along with others into a room until police officers told them it was safe to leave because they cornered the gunmen on a different floor. About 30 people followed them, only to get killed… each one of them. The gynaecologist, along with other survivors blame the police for risking people’s lives which resulted in the death of dozens. Obviously they too thought they were acting along with Salman Khan in an overly dramatized scene where it’s no big deal to put people in the line of fire since the bullets never hit them if not bounce off their bodies.

Considering India is the new up and coming global power, I can’t help but wonder if we should all take drama classes sooner or later to keep up with the new world order.

Critical Hope

Almost summer and i feel as if the year had just started. Life goes on they say, but those among us who have moved on to another phase know better. Life does not go on, it ends as we know it. Keeping an open mind and an open heart helps to create hope for a better future when this part of life ends. For the students at Virginia Tech a new phase of life started as they go back to class today. Hopeful? I think not, but hope grows with time if it does not vanish.

For the people in France hope is all they have when they cast their vote. The cynics among them know that the faces may change over the years, but the deeds or more precisely the misdeeds, do not.

The victims of modern colonization in Palestine have to hold on to hope in every aspect of life. Anyone in their right mind can’t blame them for occasionally loosing it. We stand by and watch the Israeli government do whatever it wills to make the lives of Palestinians bitter and sour and unlivable and at the same time cry out to world to protect the state of Israel. Can someone say “cuckoo”?

At the moment its bright and sunny outside, but we all know the clouds never disappear forever.

Paris in a sober state of mind

To start with, I admit that the city does have some magnificent sights. The details on some buildings are breathtakingly amazing. The feet of the Eiffel tower are so near to the street that it makes the outsider feel like they can touch the stars when they reach for them. This includes the fact that everyone can visit every single “must see” within the comfort of their own car, including the the Louvre. What takes ones breath away is the thought of how old those majestic buildings are and how small and fragile they make each individual feel.   

And there it stops.  

I believe every person who decides to visit Paris with his/her own car should think twice. Renting? Not a solution! Not because there are no car rental places (there are actually a lot) but because the average Parisian driver is a lunatic behind the wheel and the law makers are careless. Paris is the city where honking is just as important as steering the wheel.  When talking to a Parisian, I mentioned how strange this phenomenon is for an outsider. She misunderstood my English (like most French do) and said proudly that she honks at the other drivers every morning when going to work. It seems to be the only way to get through if you want to go places.  

Next to traffic manners, the Parisians should learn the basic rules of hygiene. Stepping on doggy droppings when walking on the streets is not romantic. Less romantic are the dirty toilets everywhere, private or public. When you’re out in the cold and you have to go, you can not just drive back for an hour to the hotel. My solution was to stop drinking at all times: even less romantic. 

What is it with their English? Someone in Paris mentioned that English is difficult for the French. I think the French make it difficult. If you want to watch a movie at the theater – an American movie nevertheless – you get to watch it in French. Want to hear Leonardo di Caprio speaking French in Blood Diamond? Only in France!  For me and millions of others, English is not the first language, but we make it work. I agree that the stranger should learn the language of the locals. However, if you want to make money out of those strangers (not to forget, the Parisian economy is mainly based on tourism), consider learning the universal language. The Dutch in general speak English just fine. I have yet to see a Dutch person in Amsterdam demanding the tourist to speak the local language. French on the other hand has a lot more similarities with the English language than the Dutch with the English. Try to get in a Parisian restaurant and order something. Anything. What you’ll most likely get is an empty stare of the other person waiting for you to ask them in French. But see the French tourists in Amsterdam and miraculously their English is just fine! 

If you want to fall in love and you don’t mind being surrounded by doggy poopy, dirty toilets, people who should be suspended from driving a car ever and arrogant unhelpful people, Paris is the perfect place to be. I think the only reason people fall in love there is the combination of French wine and cheese in their stomach. I don’t drink wine, but I tried the cheese. I think a person really needs both to get high enough and enjoy the whole picture that is Paris.  Mais Oui!

Constructing Walls

Last Monday I was sitting in the train, on my way to Amsterdam, and a thought hit me. The person on the seat next to me was on the phone with someone on the other end of the line. Two people in front of me were talking about Shakira’s concert in Arnhem which had been cancelled. I myself was on my way to meet some colleagues to discuss the plans for 2007 (a bit late, but that’s what you get when the majority of us is a volunteer and have other priorities to start with). Every single one of us in this small part
in this relatively small train on this tiny part of the world is living his/her own
life(s). Each one of us is concerned about so many different things.

Individually different that is. Turn on the radio and you hear people talk about different concerns. But let it snow in the Netherlands and the whole country is concerned about mainly that. We are in boxes. Some big and some very, very tiny. Apparently we put ourselves in them. We make borders, we build walls, we draw lines. We draw even thicker lines in the time of war. Prejudice against each other, ignorance and unwillingness to look beyond that which seems visible (yet stays a blur when attention is really being paid) fuel the line of fire that separate us. Walls are not always invisible.   Some idiots are spending millions of dollars for the passed couple of years to build a wall with the means of separation. It happened in the past, it happens now and it will
happen again. Yet, in the recent years we saw cracks in some walls when a big
part of the world was hit by the tsunami. It seems only those disasters we can
not blame on each other make us have a peek, even the smallest, out of the box.